Do you know whether the Pupil Premium is being paid for the child you are raising - and if not, do you know whether it should be?
If you are a family and friends carer, it is very important to know whether a Pupil Premium is being paid for the child you're bringing up, and also to know what that means.

The Pupil Premium is an extra allowance that the government pays to schools (usually to schools - I'll explain more later) for pupils who have been disadvantaged. More pupils are going to qualify for it, and the amount paid for some will increase substantially, from September this year - and a lot of those who will benefit will be children being raised by family and friends carers.

Until now, the three groups of children who attract the Pupil Premium have been: children who have ever had free school meals in the last six years; children who are looked after, and have been for over six months; and the children of armed forces personnel. Payments for the first two groups have been at the same rate, with the third group at a lower rate.

From September 2014, there will be significant changes. Children will become eligible for the Pupil Premium if they have been looked after for just one day, and also if they left care to be under a Residence Order, Special Guardianship Order or to be adopted. And the amount paid for this set of pupils will go up significantly - from £900 a year to £1,900.

So! You may be wondering what is going to happen to this money?
Well, the responsibility for spending it will be with the Virtual School Head (VSH) if the child is looked after, or with the school itself if the child is not looked after.

The money is paid as an overall amount to the school or the VSH, and they are not obliged to allocate a particular amount to any one child. The school could decide that one eligible child was particularly needy of extra support, and spend £3,800 on them, while another eligible child is doing well and needs no extra support at all.

However, the schools do have to demonstrate that the performance of the pupils who have attracted the Pupil Premium is improving. Ofsted scrutinises them very closely about this during inspections, and publishes detailed tables of their findings, so most school will want to use the money in the way intended.

So what does this mean for you?
It means that if you are raising a child who is looked after, or used to be looked after before you got an SGO or RO or adopted them, then the school or VHS is being given extra funding to ensure that the child gets the right support. You are entitled to ask the school how they are using their Pupil Premium allowance, and how the child is benefitting from it.

Remember, the amount spent on the child you are raising may be more or less than the figure of £1,900, but it is money that is intended to provide support for children in their circumstances, and the school is supposed to show that it is using the money to benefit the education of these children.

My Granddaughter came into our care straight from her parents. Childrens services were involved from her birth and asked us if we wanted to care for her and paid all the legal costs. We also get a monthly allowance. So will our granddaughters school receive the premium when she starts infant school.

If so, this means they would be assessed as Looked After children and you would have automatic entitlements to the higher rate pupil's premium.

In the event that you had not been granted a court order, (which I do not think applies in your situation), you may still be entitled to pupil premium for your grandaughter for example, if she receives free school meals due to your family's financial circumstances, but at a lower rate.

We have had a positive experience of our grandchild's LA requiring the school to demonstrate how they have spent the money to HIS benefit even though there are no major issues educationally, just some weak areas. The pupil premium has been used for one to one home tutiotion in ordder for him to reach his potential rather than just average.

It's good to hear that the local authority are holding the school to account for the way the Pupil Premium is spent. It should be spent to meet the identified needs of the pupils whose presence at the school has entitled them to receive the Pupil Premium. Providing extra tuition to help your grandson fulfil his potential is just the sort of thing the PP should be used for.